Posted by From today, I am officially supporting AmendTheSmokingBan.com – a campaign to amend the smoking ban so as to save our pubs and clubs.
Thousands of pubs and clubs in England & Wales are under serious threat – if not universally of closure, then of having to lay-off staff and reduce opening hours. This threat is substantially exacerbated by the comprehensive ban on smoking in public places introduced on 1st July 2007.
Alternatives to the present ban, falling short of full repeal (which we do NOT support), are both viable and practical and would constitute a “win-win” public policy outcome for any future government.
Chris Irvine speaks, I think, for many people, when he said on Strood Conservatives:
I have absolutely no objection to the smoking ban in restaurants and other public venues such as theatres and places where children are present, but isn’t it time that the government started treating us as adults and allowed pubs and clubs to make their own decision as to whether or not they permit smoking?
With five pubs going out of business every day, it is now clear that Labour’s smoking ban is doing more harm than good. Let the people decide
Watch the explanatory video below, then visit AmendTheSmokingBan.com to find out more and get involved.
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I think I’d have more sympathy if the law hadn’t been so corrupt for all these years in treating drugs in different ways. By now it must be clear that the only real reason for outlawing other drugs originally was to give the powerful tobacco lobby a legal monopoly by outlawing all their competition.
Okay, nowadays we know more, and there are (apparently) valid reasons for outlawing drugs — but of course that clearly must include tobacco products. Now that is the law that should change — especially as there are now patches for the addicts to cope without their traditional format “fix”.
As Edwina Currie once said: if the then Conservative government had had tobacco arrive as a new drug, it would have been banned. They were stuck with history — then.
Patches mean there is no excuse for not banning the stuff now — or allowing all other equivalent drugs (and toibacco is known by governments to be a hard drug, by the way, though that has been concealed from the public)..
As usual, diversionary tactics fail to deal with the core issue. All non-medicinal drugs should be treated the same way, perhaps with no more than minor variations in the law for different categories. That is the real question.
John,
Tobacco is a unique drug. Unique, because it is a substance that can can both stimulate and relax the user without it affecting the individuals ability to continue with life in anaffected way.
The reasons why other substances have been banned and fall into legal categories is because the substance effects the users ability to live life normally, thus effecting the individuals interaction with other human beings in society and therefore causing a detrimental effect on others and society as a whole. Such, for example, is the reason why cannabis over the last few years was lowered from a class B drug to a class C drug, as it was deemed not that harmful and police time was being wasted on arrests for posession of what was percieved as a relatively harmless substance, but when new skunk versions were introduced that were more potent and found to be causing psychological problems amongst users it was quickly reclassified as a class B drug.
If tobacco was banned, the only way to enforce the law on what is still a quarter of the population would be to introduce a police state, the cost of enforcing the law together with lost tax income from tobacco sales of £10 billion annually would cause unthinkable consequences.
Of the 64 passive smoking theory studies carried out (of which most have concluded a null hypthesis, and some a negative hypthesis, in other words passive smoke can be actually beneficial to health) those that conclude significant or positive risk hold severe flaws in the case studies or have been carried out with wish bias (the bias may be personal, financial, political or institutional.) One can only conclude by looking carefully at the studies that passive smoking is harmless.
Nevertheless, some people do not like smokey atmospheres. Giving the public the real facts about passive smoking, and allowing smoking to occur in a controled way, such as seperate smoking rooms with air replacement technology, or declaring the establishment to be smoking permitted throughout will give anyone entering the establishment the freedom to choose for themselves wether they wish to enter.
Pubs, clubs and bingo halls are closing at an alarming rate. This campaign, I believe, is sensible and achievable and I wholeheartedly support it.
Today’s revelations make this campaign even more relevant than it already was.
It would be nice to think that the Tories would have a more measured take on the problem (which, let’s face it, wasn’t much of an issue with pub-goers prior to Labour’s Health Act 2006), but there is merely the subtlest sound of tumbleweed emanating from the party of property rights thus far.
There was an interesting post on Conservative Home on the same subject a few weeks ago and the general response was decidedly positive for an amendment. Hopefully, Oliver Letwin was taking good note.
I see Anthony has swallowed the pro-tobacco propaganda line…
Of course, it is well established that the stuff affects the way its users bheave, as they become desperate for a “fix” after a while, lose all self-respect so they don’t care that they stink, and lose respect and consideration for everyone else as the infinite selfishness of the drug addict is that nothing can be allowed to come between the addict and its “fix”, so everyone else gets subjected to the emmanations whenever it is legal to do so.
I know: it happens to me, with next to no consideration — but that’s how drug addicts behave.
If that is what anyone would call an “unaffected” way of life, then it is obvious that anyone claiming so hasn’t the slightest idea of what that means to the rest of society, who do know how to cope with life without propping themselevs up on non-essential chemical crutches.